I See Republicans:
It was the night before Christmas when all through the house not
a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney
with care, in the hopes that a real Democrat would soon be there... A few
thoughts for the New Year that will see Republicans taking control of
every branch of government...

The Comfort of Illusion:
Why is President Bush popular? The answer is really quite simple. Americans
prefer the comfort of illusion. Americans want to believe in myths and fairy
tales. Logic is reserved for the most interesting characters of science fiction.
The majority of Americans prefer to play make-believe. Politicians understand our
collective need to be comfortable and play to that need.

Tim Francis-Wright

Good Money After Bad:
American conservatives love to proclaim that government is wasting tax dollars by throwing
money at supposedly intractable social problems. When those same conservatives are faced with
a truly intractable military problem, however, guess what they do. They throw lots
of money at the problem, money that turns into so much dross.

Reaping Dividends full text">Reaping Dividends:
On 28 December, some 750,000 American workers received a foul Christmas present from
the Bush administration. That day meant the end of a federal program to extend unemployment
benefits for workers who had been out of jobs for 26 weeks or more. The economic stimulus package that the Bush administration is about to propose
will probably have some provision restoring those benefits to some of those unemployed
workers. They will not be the real winners, however, of the proposal. The real
winners will be the 750,000 or so American families with over $500,000 in annual
income.

18 December 2002

Tim Francis-Wright

The Democrats Earned a D for Effort:
The Democrats blew a golden opportunity to solidify their hold on the
Senate and even to take control of the House. They failed to exploit
Republican weaknesses on a host of policies. They failed to make the
elections into a referendum on either President Bush or his allies in
Congress. And they failed to present any sort of systematic alternative
to the Republican status quo. Democrats have suffered too long from a
misbegotten notion that they needed to be more like the Republicans
in order to win.

8 December 2002

Paul Corrigan

Anti-War Heroes:
Mairead Corrigan won the 1976 Nobel Prize for her courageous stand against political
and religious violence. Her courage and common sense should be a lesson to all of
us. We can stop the insanity. We can make a difference.

2 December 2002

Paul Corrigan

An American Myth: Bush is a Conservative:
Conservative citizens, beware. The Bush administration is not what you think
it is. George W. Bush is not a conservative. And true conservatives are not
blind to the corruption in the Bush administration.

25 November 2002

Paul Corrigan

Less Safe/Less Free:
The latest Bush trade, freedom for security, makes no
sense. Americans are now both less safe and less free.
It would appear that Bush has a slow learning curve, assuming
that he cared about liberty when he made the trade. He didn't.

17 November 2002

Paul Corrigan

Not So Equal Opportunity:
According to Jack Grubman and Sanford Weill, the way to get ahead in life is
to use your influence, everyone else be damned.

No Jack Kennedy:
President Bush has declared war with Iraq to be both necessary and urgent, yet
in 1962, one of his predecessors avoided war in a much more dire situation.

8 October 2002

Paul Corrigan

It's the Economy, Not Iraq, Stupid:
Despite the best efforts of Republican politicians and their
spinmasters, the American public appears poised to send politicians a
message in November's midterm elections.

Tim Francis-Wright

Bad Credit:
Even the most responsible state tax credits can be bad deals for the states issuing them.

1 October 2002

Paul Corrigan

In the Name of the Father:
The Bush family's quest to remove the stain of the presidency of George
H. W. Bush has diminished the American empire that it seeks to exploit.

Tim Francis-Wright

Pax Americana:
Proclaiming preemption as the basis for a national security strategy shows
an appalling lack of historical and political perspective.

22 September 2002

Paul Corrigan

The Name Game:
This past week, the Bush administration and the president of Harvard
University reverted to name-calling in lieu of leadership.

Tim Francis-Wright

War Fever:
Remember the Maine? The missile gap? The Gulf of Tonkin?
The passion of those clamoring for war does not always mean that their
cause is wise, just, or sound.

The Gilded Triangle:
A gilded triangle including corporate executives, accounting firms, and corporate
boards of directors allows executives to run companies for their own personal enrichment.

2 June 2002

Paul Corrigan

In Critique of Pure Tolerance:
The government was right to try to protect individuals
against parts of the Internet, but wrong to mandate that protection
as law.

Tim Francis-Wright

First Principle:
Any peaceful solution to the conflict in Israel and Palestine must
include the right of both states to exist.

26 May 2002

Paul Corrigan

Right-Wing Radio:
The Boston Globe recently published an article that called Mike Barnicle's
politics "Urban Democratic" and Don Imus's politics "Democratic/Opportunistic."
These two men could be mistaken for good-looking women before they
could be mistaken for Democrats.

Tim Francis-Wright

Kashmir Sweating:
As India and Pakistan continue a deadly pas de deux in Kashmir, the Bush
administration needs to figure out how to rein in its friends in Islamabad.

19 May 2002

Paul Corrigan

Deny It:
Given the propensity of our political and corporate leaders to lie, did they
become leaders because they lie so well, or do they lie because they are
leaders and their success compels them to lie?

Tim Francis-Wright

Buttering the Upper Crust:
Remember the middle-class tax cut that George Bush promised? Most of it is yet to come,
except it will go to the richest Americans.

12 May 2002

Paul Corrigan

Sergeant Schultz:
While watching Hogan's Heroes as a child, little did I know
that Schultz would become a model for two American presidents, the CEO
of one of America's largest corporations, and America's most powerful
cardinal.

Tim Francis-Wright

Market Failure:
The Enron scandal has overshadowed a growing crisis in the American stock market.

5 May 2002

Paul Corrigan

If Only the Parents Knew:
Youth hockey may have brought my son and me closer together, but
leaving it will improve the quality of our time together.

28 April 2002

Tim Francis-Wright

French Lessons:
The recent election in France has several important lessons for the Democratic
and Green Parties in America.

The Chief Executive Tax:
Some of the leaders of America's large corporations earn so much money that
they practically tax what you buy.

7 April 2002

Paul Corrigan

Following the Yellow Brick Road:
The Middle East has exposed the real George W. Bush. Bush is the Tin Man, Scarecrow,
Lion, and Wizard all rolled up into one president: no heart, no brain, no courage but full
of false bravado.

March Madness:
No matter the trappings that adults put on the games that kids play, the kids put
the outcomes in perspective.

Tim Francis-Wright

Social Insecurity:
When conservatives talk of "reforming" Social Security, they do not talk of making
Social Security taxes less onerous on the poor. They talk instead of making
guaranteed benefits subject to the vagaries of the stock market.

The Bush administration recently promoted Elliott Abrams
to a senior position on the National Security Council. But for
a lame-duck presidential pardon from George Bush the Elder, Abrams
would have a criminal record for withholding information from
Congress.

When Trent Lott, leader of the Senate Republicans, spoke at
a party for retiring Senator Strom Thurmond, he praised Thurmond's
1948 presidential campaign in explicit terms. Thurmond was opposed
to the radical notion that lynching, Jim Crow laws, the poll tax,
and segregation were wrong. The enormity of Lott's remarks did not
keep George Bush from being seen at the White House with both
Thurmond and Lott the very next day.

Don't cry too hard for the homeowners of Augusta, Georgia
who won't have tenants during Masters week this year. A special
section of the Internal Revenue Code has exempted rental income
for 14 or fewer days per year from any federal income taxation,
regardless of the amount of money involved. For some homeowners
in Augusta, the money is in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Included in the House version of the bill to crate a Department of
Homeland Security was a provision that would protect Eli Lilly from lawsuits
against its production of thimerosal, a mercuric preservative used
in childhood vaccines. In the past two years, Eli Lilly has donated more money
to Republican congressional candidates—some $1.26 million—than any
other pharmaceutical firm.

In the 2002 gubernatorial campaign in Georgia, Republican Sonny Perdue
won thanks in no small part to his opposition to the new Georgia state flag,
which replaced one dominated by the battle flag of the Confederate States of
America. When Southern conservatives equate the battle flag with heritage, they
mean a very recent heritage. In Georgia, the old flag dated all the way back to
1956.

When Harvey Pitt nominated William Webster to be the new head of the Public
Companies Accounting Oversight Board, he neglected to tell his fellow members
of the Securities and Exchange Commission that Judge Webster had experience in
overseeing accounting at a public company. Unfortunately, his experience was
in failing to exercise good oversight.

George Bush was supposed to have a sort of rapport with Mexican
president Vicente Fox. Now, however, Mexico is planning to snub the United States
and join France in supporting military action in Iraq only if Iraq prevents
weapons inspections. Furthermore, Mexico and the United States remain at odds
on issues of trade and migration.

When President Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act this month and
ordered the members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
back to work, he was the first president ever to use the act
to halt a lockout by management.

The first American president with an MBA may not have hit the trifecta,
but he has still managed a dubious exacta. From July through September,
the major stock indexes had their worst quarter since the final quarter of 1987.
And domestic equity mutual funds had their worst quarter since 1981, with only 86
up and over 8000 down for the quarter.

At a recent fundraiser, George Bush explained that Saddam Hussein
doubtless hated America, and that his onetime efforts to kill George
Bush the Elder were evidence. Even if one believed that an assassination
attempt entails antipathy for a nation or its people, there has been
evidence for years that Iraq had no connection to the car
bomb intended for Bush the Elder in 1993.

Jack Welch, the erstwhile Chief Executive Officer of General Electric,
retained a host of perks, even in retirement. The company pays for almost
any imaginable expense related to his New York apartment, from capital
expenditures and real estate taxes down to such quotidian needs as free
toiletries, helicopter service, newspapers, flowers, groceries, and wine.

Recently, over 80 directors and officers of American public companies
met for a three-day "boot camp" on corporate governance. The attendees,
who represent the interests and concerns of shareholders, managed a
whopping average score of 32 percent on the accounting exam.

Officials in the Bush administration have privately confirmed
that the administration's objections to the International
Criminal Court stem from fears that American leaders could
face charges. In its public statements, the administration
has mentioned only the possibility of American soldiers facing
charges on political grounds.

When we wrote in October 2001 about the lunacy of having children send
cash in the mail to the White House for the Fund for Afghan Children, we
worried about malfeasance involving cash donations. Last month, two
Philadelphia men were arrested for stealing thousands of letters with
money for the Fund for Afghan Children.

Over the past 42 months, scores of executives at telecommunications
companies made huge profits selling stock. Counting sales made by their
relatives, 99 executives had profits of over $10 million, and 12 made over $100
million.

While George W. Bush spent six years in college and graduate
school before he held down a job for as long as nine months, he
recently said that college study is no good for helping people currently
on welfare become independent.

The Business Roundtable has correctly called for an end to the sort of
corporate shenanigans that made Enron and Global Crossing into the equivalent
of four-letter words. "Enough is enough," cries one of its ads. But of the ten
leaders of the Business Roundtable, eight have compensation packages of at least
$5 million. Of those eight companies, three had returns to shareholders from
1996 to 2001 that lagged what investors could earn in a money market fund.

From 1999 to 2001, the chief executives officers at major American
corporations had compensation equal to over 270 times that of an average
worker. In other words, they made more in one working day than the average
worker earned in a year. In 1965, by contrast, the average CEO earned 26
times that of an average worker.

Antonin Scalia recently claimed that the more Christian a country is,
the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. The country most
steeped in the traditions of Western Christianity, and the country ruled by the
leader of Scalia's particular brand of Christianity, does in fact view the
death penalty as just that.

Data from the Brookings Institution and the Center for Defense
Information point to the fiscal sinkhole that has been the real end
result of missile defense over the years. Through 1983, ballistic
missile defense cost some $34 billion, including an operational system
in North Dakota that was so obsolete when finished that the Pentagon
shut it down after four months. Since 1983, the United States has
spent $95 billion on ballistic missile defense, including about
$44 billion on a national defense system.

In response to the recent federal court ruling about the Pledge of
Allegiance, President Bush declared that he intended to oput on the bench
only judges who believed that rights cam from God. Too bad that the
United States Constitution prohibits anyreligious test for
any federal office.

Earlier this month, the top aide to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
told the press that Japan was considering building up to 3,000 nuclear weapons.
Does this make Japan part of the "axis of evil" or part of the "axis
of good nuclear proliferators"?

When the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops met recently,
it banned the Boston Globe from covering the live sessions of
the conference, in retaliation for the release of a proposed policy
on sexual abuse.

George Bush did his best to help his brother's re-election
campaign last week by proposing that the federal government buy out the
companies that held the untapped oil and gas drilling rights in the
Everglades and Gulf of Mexico. No such luck for California.

It's official. The closest thing to a truly permanent campaign, the 1984
Reagan-Bush committee, has finally stopped. For years, Angela "Bay" Buchanan
(yes, the sister of Pat Buchanan) invested the campaign's surplus in long-term
investments and paid herself consulting fees, until the Associated Press caught
her at it.

Pedro Carmona, the businessman who briefly claimed the Venezuelan presidency
during the failed coup last month, has been granted asylum in Columbia. The news
came on the same night that Álvaro Uribe Vélez won the election to
become the next Columbian president. American ambassador Anne Patterson
met with Uribe before his acceptance speech and promised
close relations between the United States and the new government.

Over the past few days, the Bush administration has found excuse after excuse
why it failed to act on information that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were
preparing to hijack airplanes. As a presidential candidate, however, George
Bush stressed the importance of having a president who accepted responsibility.

New Scientist reports that the National Academy of Sciences,
has refused to release dozens of reports about new and proposed non-lethal weapons,
in part because much of the research violates both American law and international
treaties restricting chemical and biological weapons.

The Republican Party has found yet another way to show that it trusts its own
voters: when in doubt, push challengers to the insiders' favored candidates aside.
In two states, we have caught Republicans playing this game.

When faced in Venezuela with the choice between a bombastic but democratically
elected president and a bunch of plutocrats and generals who (1) suspended
the constitution, (2) abolished the Supreme Court, and (3) vacated the posts of
governorships, guess who the Bush administration supported?

If the United States spent even one-quarter of its recent
$48 billion increase in the defense budget on foreign economic aid, then it would
be the largest donor in dollars and an average donor in terms of percentage
of GDP about the largest industrialized nations.

It was bad enough when White House press secretary Ari Fleischer blamed
the Clinton administration for trying too hard for peace in 2000 and thus creating the
current mess in the West Bank. President Bush has now done the same thing.

The Washington Post reported this week that at the recent
annual Presidential Gala at Ford's Theatre, President Bush tried to
get performer Stevie Wonder's attention. By waving. It would be funny if
it weren't true.

President Bush is trying again to convince Americans that is is wise
to give up some guaranteed Social Security benefits in exchange for
control over the respective investments. But the average 401(k) account
grew much less than the overall stock market from 1994 to 2000, so this
tradeoff may not be so lucrative for the investors themselves.

What is it about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and discussions on
news programs? On 4 February, he compared the American military to the German
Blitzkrieg. He did so without any apparent irony. In October, he refused
to rule out using nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. Our leaders have vilified
Iran, Iraq, and North Korea because of their weapons of mass destruction: yet none
of these countries has "refused to rule out" nuclear weapons against its
enemies.

The latest American federal budget projections from the Congressional
Budget Office do not show a budget surplus outside of Social Security
until 2010. When George Bush was campaigning, however, he promised to keep
Social Security funds off limits.

In 1997, Karl Rove, when he was working for the nascent Bush presidential
campaign, encouraged Enron to hire Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian
Coalition, as a consultant. Close associates of Rove have confirmed that the
campaign wanted to ally Reed with the campaign without paying him directly. The
job violated federal election laws if it was merely a way to compensate Reed for
his work on the Bush campaign.

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that among the top twenty contributors
(counting both corporate political action committees and affiliated individuals)
to the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign were: Enron (#11); Arthur Andersen, its accounting
firm (#5); and Vinson and Elkins, its law firm (#2).

The recent supplemental defense budget included a provision to
lease, rather than buy, 100 tanker versions of the Boeing 767 aircraft.
Under the terms of the lease, the federal government will pay $20 million
per year per plane. The lease would cost the federal government billions
of dollars more than buying the planes outright. So much for fiscal prudence.

When Notre Dame hired Tyrone Willingham to be its new head football coach, he
made history, for not only was he the first African-American head football
coach at Notre Dame, but he was also the first African-American head coach at
Notre Dame in any sport. Welcome to the 21st century!

Complaint: He Doesn't Listen to the Generals: Donald Rumsfeld is alienating both America's allies and America's military leaders (Dave Moniz, USA Today).

Who Guards the Guards?: The tyranny of the United Nations Security Council will not end until no nation in it has veto power (George Monbiot, The Guardian).

Trent Lott's Segregationist College Days: In 1962, Trent Lott helped lead the successful battle to keep blacks out of any of his fraternity's chapters (Karen Tumulty, Time).

Lott Made Similar Remark about Thurmond in November 1980: At a rally for Reagan's campaign, Trent Lott said that a Thurmond presidency would have prevented "the mess we are [in] today" (Peggy Elam, Jackson Clarion-Ledger).

The Fifty-first State?: Going to war with Iraq would mean occupying Iraq, perhaps for years or even decades (James Fallows, The Atlantic Monthly).

No Time to Limit Bio-Weapons Treaty: Even though the time is ripe for strengthening the international treaty to ban biological weaponry, the United States is keen to subvert it (Editorial, Toronto Star).

At Least We'll Get a Few Laughs: The nitwits are in charge now, and smart Democrats will play defense (Molly Ivins, Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

How the Democrats Could Have Won: The Democrats could have won earlier this month by embracing three simple ideas (Paul Glastris, The Washington Monthly).

The Agony of Defeat: The Democratic Party managed to lose in 2002 by becoming its own worst enemy (David Moberg, In These Times).

Israel: Walled In, But Never Secure: Israel is erecting a wall that will dwarf the Berlin Wall, but will likely make neither Israelis nor Palestinians secure (Matthew Brubacher, Le Monde-Diplomatique).

Blair Has Not Been a Poodle, but Poodleism Still Beckons: Despite his affinity with George Bush, Tony Blair has been one of the few people with leverage in Washington who is not gung-ho for war (Hugo Young, The Guardian).

Board Was Told of Risks Before Bush Stock Sales: The lawyers for Harken Energy warned George Bush and other Harken directors against selling shares one week before he did so (Michael Kranish and Beth Healy, Boston Globe).

Bush and Iraq: President Bush wants to overthrow the rules that have governed international life for the last fifty years. (Anthony Lewis, New York Review of Books).

Carve-Up of Oil Riches Begins: The United States plans to ditch industry rivals and force the end of OPEC (Peter Beaumont and Faisal Islam, The Observer).

Thatcher, the Miners' Strike and Heroin: Many British mining towns are in worse shape than even Arthur Scargill predicted (Matthew Collin, YearZero.org).

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Jim Bromgard was wrongly convicted on suspect scientific evidence and sent to jail for 15 years; there are thousands of others like him still in jail in the US (Caroline Overington, The Age).

US Weapons Secrets Exposed: The US is developing new weapons that undermine and may violate pacts on biological and chemical warfare (Julian Borger, The Guardian).

Blue Chip Investors: Find out which corporations are the 100 largest contributors to federal campaigns in the past 14 years (OpenSecrets.Org).

Whack Back on November 5: Here are 24 reasons for regime change in Florida (Stephen Goldstein, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel).

Bush Should Take a Walk Near Home: Bush should have defied the sniper by walking the streets instead of campaigning elsewhere (Jimmy Breslin, Newsday).

SF Peace March Draws Thousands: A huge San Francisco rally against war in Iraq was just one of several around the world (Wyatt Buchanan, Christopher Heredia, and Suzanne Herel, San Francisco Chronicle).

War Plans Under Fire as Even Bush Heartland Talks Peace: Critics of a war on Iraq include the national head of George Bush's church (Ed Vuillamy, The Observer).

The Gildered Age Goes Bust: More people have been or will be affected by the telecom epidemic than any other economic accident of the last 25 years (Nomi Prins, Left Business Observer).

Judge Orders White House Papers' Release: For a second time, a judge has ordered release of documents from Dick Cheney's energy task force (Neely Tucker, Washington Post).

Satrap? You Can Say That Again: For Australians, being a satrapy is not a bed of roses, but is downright dangerous (Terry Lane, The Age).

FDA Action on Drug Ads Declining: Drug companies are advertising more and more, but the FDA is policing their ads less and less (Alice Dembner, Boston Globe).

Bush Seeks to Cut Back on Raise for SEC's Corporate Cleanup: Despite a bevy of corporate governance scandals, the Bush administration wants to underfund the SEC budget by some 27 percent (Stephen Labaton, New York Times).

I'm With Ashcroft: The gun lobby could sacrifice a few liberties in the face of real terror in and around Washington (Michaelangelo Signorile, New York Press).

GE Expenses for Ex-Chief Cited in Divorce Papers: Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch enjoys a plethora of company perks, even in retirement (Geraldine Fabrikant, New York Times).

Looking Back to See the Challenge Ahead: A new, energized citizens' movement must make the issues of 10 September 2001 visible again (Howard Zinn, TomPaine.com).

Wake-Up Call: In the biggest war game of all time, a retired general playing Saddam Hussein beat the Pentagon brass (Julian Borger, The Guardian).

Inarticulate, and Proud of It: Our president lacks understanding of the relationships between words and acts, or rhetoric and intention (James Carroll, Boston Globe).

In War, Some Facts Less Factual: Some American assertions from the last war on Iraq were faulty or just plain fraudulent (Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor).

Plans for Iraq Attack Began on 9/11: On 11 September 2001, Donald Rumsfeld ordered studies of an attack on Iraq without any evidence to link Iraq with the 9/11 terrorists (CBS News).

Netanyahu's Wife: "Israel Can Burn": The wife of former Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu claimed recently that he was "bigger than this entire country" of Israel: the Greeks called this hubris (Associated Press).

Israeli Nuclear Forces, 2002: Here are the facts about the real weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East (Robert Norris, William Arkin, Hans Kristensen, and Joshua Handler, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

Corporate Capture: The Earth Summit augurs to be a disaster (George Monbiot, The Guardian).

Argentine Military Believed U.S. Gave Go-Ahead for Dirty War: Declassified documents show complicity between Henry Kissinger and the Argentine government (National Security Archive).

Stroke the Rich: Bush is hoping to bail out wealthy investors by increasing the allowance for capital losses (William Saletan, Slate.com).

November Surprise?: In Washington, the question about Iraq is not whether America will attack, but when it will (James Ridgeway, Village Voice).

The Real Thing: Conservatives in America consistently rely on a fake and cynical populism belied by their policies (Paul Krugman, New York Times).

Could 9/11 Have been Prevented?: Perhaps, if the Bush administration had taken seriously the work of the Clinton administration (Michael Elliott, Time).

On Being Called a Commie: Political correctness ought to mean blind adherence to the dominant ideology: today, that means American nationalism (Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice).

Bush Company Went Offshore: While George Bush was on its board of directors, Harken Energy set up a Cayman Islands subsidiary (Timothy Berger, New York Daily News).

Race in American Public Schools: Rapidly Resegregating School Districts: While the United States is more diverse than ever, schoolchildren are largely isolated from this growing diversity (Harvard University Civil Rights Project).

Is the Big-Business Era Over?: The American public now doubts that big business can regulate itself or deliver prosperity. (Roy Teixeira, The American Prospect).

Leafing Through the Bush Legacy: It takes most leaders years to develop their legacies; Bush has done so in only 18 months (Walt Brasch, CounterPunch).

Confidence Men: The myth of Republican competence persists despite the evidence to the contrary (Joshua Marshall, The Washington Monthly).

Majority Rules: America is in the midst of monumental changes in its politics, changes that help Democrats (John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, The New Republic).

Bush's Conspiracy to Riot: The Bush recount committee's own IRS filings show that it paid the "rioters" who halted the Miami-Dade County recount (Consortium News).

Bush Falters but Who Dare Oppose Him?: The Democrats have a new lease of life that they seem reluctant to exploit (Todd Gitlin, The Observer).

Dem's Fightin' Words: Democrats will be continually clobbered until they embrace politics, become proud partisans, and figure out who they are (Michael Tomasky, The American Prospect).

Yes, We Need a "Regime Change" in This Rogue State...: But the state in question is not Iraq (Adrian Hamilton, The Independent).

Promoting Honesty by Releasing Corporate Tax Returns: Making corporate tax returns public is an old idea that may have new life (Joseph Thorndike, Tax Notes).

What Scandal? It's Business as Usual: What capitalism unchained is perpetrating now is what it always has and always will perpetrate (Wayne O'Leary, Portland Press-Herald).

JPEG's Are Not Free: Patent Holder Pursues IP Grab: A Texas company is starting to demand royalties for the use of JPEGs (Andrew Orlowsky, The Register). (Fortunately, its patent may be bogus.)

Did Telecom Reformers Dial the Wrong Number?: The root of a series of bankruptcies may be the sweeping deregulation of the 1990s (Michael Hiltzik and James Peltz, Los Angeles Times).

Bush Set to Flout Test Ban Treaty: American nuclear weapons laboratories are readying tests of new arms and the administration maintains an ambiguous position towards the landmark treaty (Peter Beaumont, The Observer).

Can Liberals Save Capitalism (Again)?: Seven decades after the Great Depression, Democrats have their work cut out for them (Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect).

Asleep at the Switch: When shareholders sued WorldCom for doing what drove it bankrupt, a judge with political ties threw out the suit, and no one else noticed (Neil Weinberg, Forbes).

IRS Loophole Allows Wealthy to Avoid Taxes: Insurance companies are ripping off the IRS by abusing a legal loophole (David Cay Johnston, New York Times).

Corporate Scandal Trading Cards: Enough bad news! You might tell the players without these excellent cards, but why not have them anyway (Slate.com)?

Fundie Eruptions: Now and again, when the Bush administration looks almost civilized, shadowy plots lurch forth from the darkness (Michelangelo Signorile, New York Press).

Remembering Why We Are Americans: The government is amassing more information on more of us, traducing the law as never before (Nat Hentoff, The Village Voice).

The 'Gate-Less Community: Under George W. Bush, acts that not long ago would have constituted firing offenses can now be ridden out [and check out the telling Bush quote near the end!] (Joshua Green, The Washington Monthly).

Karl Rove's Legal Tricks: Satisfying the far right with judicial nominations is Karl Rove's special mission (John Nichols, The Nation).

All the President's Enrons: The President has talked about corporate "wrongdoers" but has done nothing for real reform (Frank Rich, New York Times).

Succeeding in Business: George Bush made his millions when his company used the same tricks used by today's corporate "wrongdoers" (Paul Krugman, New York Times).

Earth "Will Expire by 2050": The World Wildlife Fund will report that by 2050, two additional planets will be needed to support humanity (Mark Townsend and Jason Burke, The Observer).

2002 Republican Election Outlook: One of Karl Rove's aides let the PowerPoint cat out of the bag when this file was dropped on a Washington street corner (PoliticsPA.com).

Fighting the Gay Right: Gay conservatives are disproportionately represented in the American media (Richard Goldstein, The Nation).

Rumsfeld in Kashmir Climbdown: The defense secretary now says that there is no evidence of Al-Qaeda militants in Kashmir (Rory McCarthy, The Guardian).

Israel Has Sub-Based Atomic Arms Capability: Israel has bought three German submarines that it is arming with nuclear-capable cruise missiles (Walter Pincus, Washington Post).

A Hole in Our Missile Defense System: Faced with a missile defense system that will be useless, the Bush administration classifies the test results (Theodore Postol, Boston Globe via CommonDreams.Org).

Prerequisites, Power, and Peace: In many of today's conflicts, the issues of power and rights will require political solutions that seem painful today but will be trivial to future generations (Immanuel Wallerstein, SUNY Binghamton).

The Perfect Crime: The silence of European governments during the Venezuelan coup will only encourage plotters again (Ignacio Ramonet, Le Monde-Diplomatique).

"Do As We Say, Not As We Did": Free trade means peanuts for third-world nations, and the first world knows it (Mark Weisbrot, Counterpunch).

Secret FBI Files Reveal Covert Activities at UC: The FBI illegally used its power in the 1950s through 1970s for political purposes (Seth Rosenfeld, San Francisco Chronicle).

Cheney's Money Has Roots in Evil: Dick Cheney made some of his millions as chairman of Halliburton by trading with Iraq (Dave Zweifel, Madison Capitol Times).

A Proposal for American Labor: It is high time for workers to embrace open-source unionism (Richard Freeman and Joel Rogers, The Nation).

Camp David and After: Despite Ehud Barak's assertions, Palestinian negotiators were right to reject Israeli proposals at Camp David and Taba (Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, New York Review of Books.

Hoon's Talk of Pre-emptive Strikes Could be Catastrophic: When the British defense secretary mentions nuclear weapons being in play against Iraq, what message do India and Pakistan hear (Hugo Young, The Guardian)?

Accounting Reform Plans Held Up By Senate Banking Committee Democrats: Democrats could lose a key issue if its senators do not stick together (TheHill.com).

The Barn Door: The proposed Department of Homeland Security could actually make Americans less safe (John Prados, The American Prospect).

Interview with Kevin Phillips: Money has produced the fusion of money and government, in other words, plutocracy (Now with Bill Moyers).

American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House: While India and Pakistan prepare for war, read this account of how an elected president defused tensions in Kashmir in 1999 (Bruce Riedel, University of Pennsylvania).

Capital Games: The penchant of the Bush administration for secrecy has come a cropper with the latest revelations about Osama bin Laden (David Corn, The Nation).

Bad Environments: The past sixteen months suggest that the decades of achievements of the American environmentalists are painfully fragile (Elizabeth Colbert, The New Yorker).

The New Politics of September 11: Democrats need to press for the truth about September 11, not just press for political gain (John Nichols, The Nation).

Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank: Israel has secretly appropriated 42% of Palestinian land in the West Bank for its settlements (B'Tselem).

The Fake Persuaders: Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the Internet (George Monbiot, The Guardian).

Nebraska Sees Red Over Its 401(k) Plans: The state of Nebraska is halting its version of a 401(k) plan because workers did much better under its old-fashioned pension plan (K. C. Swanson, TheStreet.Com).

Treasury Circumventing Hill on Tax Breaks: The Treasury Department has quietly and unilaterally given huge tax breaks to corporations (Alexander Bolton, The Hill).

The Road to Nowhere: Israel and its allies need to escape the conflict in Palestine, much as France escaped from Algeria forty years ago (Tony Judt, New York Review of Books).

Going Down the Road: There is a better way to cast ballots that does several big things for democracy (Jim Hightower, The Nation).

Bad Work: The craft of journalism was already in sorry shape, and it's only getting worse (Eric Alterman, The Nation).

Rights Group Rights Group Doubts Mass Deaths in Jenin, but Sees Signs of War Crimes: Human Rights Watch found a low death toll in the Jenin refugee camp, but also found much evidence of bad acts by the Israeli military (David Rohde, New York Times).

The Carlyle Connection: The Pentagon learned to love the Crusader howitzer, the weapon no one wanted (Geoffrey Gray, Village Voice).

Option Play: With Enron off the front page, the Bush administration is abetting the lobbyists trying to block accounting reforms. (John Judis, The New Republic).

Retirement Insecurity: Despite a boom in the stock markets between 1983 and 1999, all but the richest Americans in 1999 were behind their 1983 counterparts in saving for retirement (Economic Policy Institute).

Probe Prompts US Panic: The New York state attorney general is throwing Wall Street investment banks into a tizzy (Richard Thomson, London Observer).

US Media Interests: Champions of Profit, Propaganda, and Puffery: Who owns the media determines in large part what the media says (John Stanton and Wayne Madsen, Counterpunch).

Diplomacy US Style: The removal of the head of the agency combatting chemical weapons shows George Bush's contempt for cooperation (George Monbiot, Manchester Guardian).

No Shame: Even though his wife is on the Enron board of directors, Phil Gramm continually hinders legislation related to the company (Michele Chihara, The American Prospect).

Log Cabin to White House? Not Any More: America can no longer justifiably claim to be the land of opportunity (Will Hutton, London Observer).

Once Upon a Time in Jenin: Nearly half of the Palestinian dead in Jenin were civilians, and Israel is trying to cover up atrocities (Justin Huggler and Phil Reeves, The Independent).

Venezuela Country Representative M/OP-02-928: Read between the lines of this job posting and judge for yourself what the United States is doing in Venezuela (United States Agency for International Development).

The Minister of Propaganda: Ariel Sharon is deceiving Israelis with his propaganda about terrorism (Dave Larkin, Massachusetts Daily Collegian).

A Speech Laced with Obsessions and Little Else: George Bush, in his speech on Israel, switched the mugger and the victim (Robert Fisk, The Independent).

Musharraf Ready to Use Nuclear Arms: The president of Pakistan has threatened India with nuclear war over Kashmir (Rory McCarthy and John Hooper, The Guardian). Sprechen Sie deutsch? The original quotes are at Der Spiegel.

Thinking Ahead: Palestine faces a worse situation than in 1971 or 1982, but Palestinians must take solace that other underdogs have forced change by finding allies in the West (Edward Said, Al-Ahram via MediaMonitors.net).

Why Bush Finally Stepped in to Try to Stop the Slaughter: For now, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice have the upper hand in Washington (Ed Vuillamy, The Guardian).

Israel Has Lost Moral Superiority: Barak: A tarnished international image could diminish Israel's political power (Times of India). Sprechen Sie deutsch? The original interview is at Stern magazine.

Calling Precedent Clinton: The Bush administration could have a high-powered, high-profile negotiator for the Middle East (Richard Cohen, Washington Post).

What's Wrong with 401(k)s?: Brokers get rich; the rich get tax breaks; and the little guy gets no pension (James Ridgeway, Village Voice).